Kanban for Students

Most software companies are using agile and Kanban boards to manage projects, I do and I want to use a Kanban board to manage my tasks and assignments in my upcoming graduate adventure at Brown.

I'm starting the EMSTL program at Brown in March, however, I have just been given a hefty amount of pre-Work to accomplish prior to the program officially starting. One statement from a teacher reads roughly, "Here is your prework, manage your time wisely." My first thought was, I manage my projects at work using a Jira Kanban that would be perfect. I'll just make a backlog of all the prework and run sprints to complete all the work. So I started looking online for a good option to make a small personal Kanban.

Then I thought it would be very handy to have such a Kanban in the Canvas SW itself. The TODO list is good, the calendar is good and I'm very impressed how much more advanced and user-friendly online Canvas has made online learning.

I can image the feature list to roughly include:

Student can Create All standard Agile Components

Stories and subtasks

That are linked to instructor assignments

That are personal, customizable and NOT linked to instructor assignments.

When an Instructor creates an assignment it automatically gets added to your backlog.

Epics

Create a backlog

Due Dates and Progress Views.

Create Sprints

I could also imagine a simple Kanban for group assignments. This does not have to be a full-featured Agile tool, I think that if its well-thought-out light version could be beneficial.

The more I think about it and have started my own JIRA board for my studies. A student may not need such a complex feature-set as noted, making sprints, epics etc. I'm not trying the push the agile methodology of sprints, just the view of work.

The Kanban view or sprint board could simply be the current semester or period. It may be most effective for those not experienced in agile developers and most students, to simply have a Kanban view of their tasks and assignments.

When Teachers assign work the assignment is automatically added to the todo column, and when the student completes the assignment it is placed into the done column. The student would have the option to use this feature or not, many may like the TODO Checklist.